


Deus Misereatur

by Guede



Series: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell [4]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Baby Demons, Crack Treated Seriously, Hangover, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Polyamory, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 03:34:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5896534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holiday season aftermath at the restaurant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deus Misereatur

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted in 2007.

Zlatan did wrinkle up his nose at the unpleasant odors of spoiling food, vomit and stale alcohol, but he didn’t think too much of it. It was only four in the morning, so he figured people had just finished stumbling home from the annual staff holiday party, and probably Sandro was still too busy sulking somewhere over the collateral damage to have started cleaning up yet. Every year he wondered aloud if they really had to have a party and couldn’t just do something ‘quiet,’ and every year he ended up being the one to smuggle Paolo off into a corner after one glass of champagne. Of course he denied that he’d enjoyed any of it, but the longtime members of the staff had caught on so they always delayed negotiating pay raises till _after_ the party.

Besides, the party actually was pretty damn staid; Paolo tended not to hire the obviously wild ones, and anyway, most of the staff had some degree of a crush on him, Sandro or both of them, and went about desperate not to embarrass themselves. Which, incidentally, had been why Zlatan usually insisted on attending even though he was always bored out of his mind.

“Stupid fucking truces,” he muttered, stalking through the empty kitchen. He checked the front rooms, but only found the last few crumbs of what had been a sizable banquet—not even big enough for him to snitch a snack. He did enjoy the food, and he’d really missed that this year, with the…why demons insisted on serving crap like boiled murderer’s eyes, he’d never understood. None of that shit ever tasted good, and for fuck’s sake, they were already demons; it wasn’t like they needed to prove that they were badasses.

At least he didn’t have to make idiotic chitchat with another demon for the whole next year, if he didn’t want to. He could just boot them, or leave them for Sandro to…that was weird. Sandro wasn’t anywhere on the ground floor, and Zlatan had already noticed a couple new scratches and stains that Sandro was going to get into a snit about. And he didn’t see or hear anyone else either. The wards were all still in place, so probably nothing had happened, but it was still unusual.

He turned around and went for the staircase, making plenty of noise so hopefully Paolo would get the door instead of Sandro, who was really way too fond of that sword of his. But Zlatan got all the way to the top without magic fritzing around him or hearing angry footsteps, and so then he did start to get worried. He took the last two stairs in one step, then slapped his hand against the sigils on the doorframe instead of bothering with his key.

Once inside, he took a good whiff—and relaxed, since Paolo and Sandro were definitely up here. But not in the living room…or the kitchen…or the bedroom. Frowning, Zlatan slowly turned around, and then he saw the half-open bathroom door. “Paolo?”

Uneven shuffle. Then fingers curled around the edge of the door. They flexed against the wood for a moment before pulling that out of the way so Paolo could abruptly appear in the doorway. His shirt was uncharacteristically rumpled and half-hanging out of his trousers, and he was definitely on the pale side. “Zlatan? Oh, you’re…back? It’s…that…late already?”

And he spoke very slowly, his brow furrowing before each word. Zlatan cautiously walked over, then bit down on a swear as Paolo suddenly started to slide down the door. He ducked and got his hands beneath Paolo’s arms, then hoisted Paolo up against his front so he could start feeling down the angel; Paolo muffled a raspy, wavery apology in Zlatan’s shoulder as he weakly tried to get a grip on Zlatan’s upper arms. He seemed okay, in one piece with no obvious bloodstains, but—

To do him credit, Paolo did push really hard at Zlatan, and did try to twist his head around. But the problem was he hadn’t even gotten his balance back, so his feet slipped and made him drop forward to smush his face into Zlatan’s chest. His shoulders heaved once, a choking gravelly noise coming from him, and then Zlatan’s shirt was soaked with a heavy wetness that was warm for just the first second. Then it rapidly cooled to an unappealing clamminess.

Zlatan stood there for about a minute, just holding Paolo up—Paolo had moved his head from the stain, but didn’t seem too inclined to get his face out of Zlatan’s chest—and thinking to himself that he really, really should’ve skipped the damn regional party, and never mind that he’d have had about fifty percent more fights in the next year because demons, of all beings, were so touchy about etiquette. Then he sighed, hitched up Paolo, and turned about.

Some dark lump was in the bathtub, shivering slightly every time Zlatan or Paolo made a sound. So Zlatan hauled Paolo over to the shower. After setting a greenish-faced Paolo down in the corner of that, Zlatan stepped back out to strip off his soiled shirt. And to look into the tub at Sandro, all curled up with his hair gone past frizzing to stick in long snarled trails down the back of his neck. He’d washed himself up, but the source of the—for once genuine—look of misery on his face was clear from how he had his forehead jammed against the tub wall, his eyes tightly shut and his arms knotted around his belly. When Zlatan bent down, Sandro’s left eye cracked open a sliver, but otherwise he didn’t move. Didn’t even wrinkle his nose, didn’t tense up, didn’t even bend his mouth into a sneer.

“You look like shit,” Zlatan said. It came out more like a sigh than he normally would’ve let it, but to be honest, it wasn’t even worth taking a potshot at the angel, awful as he looked.

Sandro made a noise when Zlatan grabbed him, sort of a cross between the beginning of a query and whimper. He lifted his head, then jerked it out like he was trying to hammer his chin into his breastbone, and that was it. He let Zlatan curse and wrestle with his limp limbs, not offering any help there. Then again, he didn’t even flinch when Zlatan couldn’t keep one shin from knocking the edge of the tub as he finally got Sandro out.

“I’m sorry,” Paolo started when Zlatan opened the shower door again. He’d unbuttoned his shirt and gotten most of it off so he could wipe his face with it. He looked up at Zlatan, squinting like the light was nearly unbearable.

Zlatan muttered beneath his breath as he put down Sandro so the light went out. Then he needed a second before he could get up and take down the shower-head, which could convert to a hand-held deal. He noticed Paolo wincing as he turned, but well, either the light could be out and his eyes were going to glow so he could see, or the light could be on and Paolo would probably throw up again.

Sandro stirred. “Shoes.”

“Oh, for….” Rolling his eyes, Zlatan put down the showerhead and moved to squat in front of them. He lifted the first foot he saw, which turned out to be Sandro’s, and took off its shoe and sock before tossing those out the door. “So what happened? I thought you’d figured out your tolerances.”

“We…” Paolo paused, visibly collecting his thoughts. He tried to push himself up and help with his shoes, but the green tone to his face abruptly deepened and he dropped back, his hand flopping over Sandro’s back. “Gila…he brought Gigi with him, and Gigi let it slip to Adriana that he’d never had an…alcoholic drink before. I think…he might’ve been a bit…rude to somebody…anyway, she gave him some eggnog with ‘a little extra’ and we ended up having it too…”

And Zlatan had rather liked Adriana, too: she was gorgeous, had a great sense of humor and made some amazing tortes. Well, actually, he still couldn’t help but like her for pulling one on Gianluigi, but he hoped she had a pretty lousy hangover now too. “You know ‘a little extra’ is never a good thing, right? Well, not the next day.”

Paolo didn’t answer. He just looked at Zlatan, his eyes pitifully big pools of silent pain, deep grooves drawn into his skin on either side of his mouth.

Zlatan sighed. “Yeah, yeah, you forgot to think about it, because it never was a problem back when you were…oh, come here. After you get washed off, I’ll go make some coffee.” He picked up the showerhead, then reached up and behind himself to turn on the water. “Good thing that didn’t change for me.”

“I hate you,” Sandro moaned. He pushed his forehead against the drain for a couple moments, then turned his head sideways. Then he awkwardly lifted his chin to give Zlatan a…actually, it wasn’t a glare. It was all pleading, huge eyes set into an ashen face, and damn it, he really was too miserable. He just made Zlatan feel his pain, and that was wrong in so very many ways. “Coffee…?”

“And some toast or something. It’ll help—no, really it—oh, fuck,” Zlatan muttered, watching Sandro throw up. He shifted so his toes wouldn’t get in it, then carefully used the showerhead to rinse it down the drain. Then he crawled over and started sluicing down Sandro’s hair as the angel slumped against the floor again.

* * *

Part of the problem, Paolo finally managed to explain while Zlatan was toweling them down, was that aspirin didn’t seem to work for them with hangovers. Neither did the other, somewhat more esoteric painkillers they’d figured out worked on them for other pains, and neither of them had really felt well enough to risk experimenting with spells. It’d been a lot worse when they’d first woken up, so he’d assumed time at least would cure it.

Yeah, but Zlatan didn’t really feel like waiting that long. And it was about him, since he had been counting on them to make up for his party, but also he just never liked seeing Paolo in pain. It reminded him too much of when they’d met. And not to mention he was still feeling sorry for Sandro, and that really worried him.

He put in a call to Figo before he started with the coffee and the toast, then tried to see if he could figure out something himself. Healing wasn’t exactly his strong point, though, and—Zlatan paused. Then he bit down on a frustrated curse and just indulged himself in charring a piece of bread. It’d been the end-slice, anyway. “ _What_.”

“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t know you were back yet,” Gila said.

Zlatan paused again, then remembered Gila sort of felt like Gianluigi now. He flicked the black chunk into the trash and turned around, but his hopes were dashed as right then Gianluigi came through the doorway. And Gianluigi’s clothes looked all right, if on the wrinkled side, and he was walking straight, which made Zlatan even more annoyed to see him. “Just got back about forty minutes ago. Look, whatever it is, can I just do it? Paolo and Sandro aren’t feeling too well.”

“I’d imagine, considering the excesses to which they got up last night,” Gianluigi said. He was sort of squinting, but that could’ve just been part of his usual hauteur.

“Okay, fuck you,” Zlatan said. He yanked the last pieces of toast off the stove, then had to make himself not slam the jars of honey and jam onto the breakfast tray. “I’ve already had a shitty night, and then I come back to even more crap, and I just really don’t have to put up with you, you fucking judgmental piece of shit.”

Gianluigi…winced. He put his hand to his temple, then turned it so its heel was pressing against his head. And come to think of it, he was beginning to sway a bit now that he’d stopped moving. “Zlatan. My head feels worse than when I fell, Alberto can’t find his watch—”

“—no, I just found it—”

“—and I’m not inclined to like you in the best of times.” Pause. “Don’t push your luck.”

The wincing was nice, but it really, really wasn’t enough. Not after that load of bullshit. “ _My_ luck? Excuse me, but I could’ve whipped your ass back when you had wings. And look at you, you hypocrite. What happened, did you tell somebody they were damned for all time for fighting with their mother? You know what I think, I think everybody met you and thought, ‘God, Gila deserves—’”

Speaking of which, Gila came back from the other side of the room. He was in the middle of slipping his watch back onto his wrist, but he abandoned that to grab at Gianluigi’s arm, looking anxiously up at the angel. “Are you okay? Is it getting worse? I’m sorry, we should’ve gone to the drugstore first…”

Gianluigi had, if anything, been looking like the only thing on his mind was ripping out Zlatan’s throat, but the moment Gila touched him, all his attention was on the man. His hand dropped from his head to hesitantly touch Gila’s cheek; the sharp turn obviously didn’t help his hangover, but he tried pretty hard not to show it. “I can walk. It’s not debilitating.”

“But you look really bad.” Gila bit his lip, and so Zlatan got to be amused by the sight of Gianluigi getting hit with a clear bolt of lust in the middle of a pained wince. “Maybe you should sit down for a minute. I can just go around the corner and get something.”

“Aspirin isn’t going to work. Paolo already tried it,” Zlatan finally interrupted. He still was annoyed by how Gila jumped at every little thing, but anybody who could get their throat sliced by a hellhound, be resurrected, get a pompous asshole as a flatmate, and go back to work in the same week deserved respect. And anyway, once Gila got the meeping over with, he wasn’t too bad. He handled the shit Zlatan and occasionally Sandro dragged in a lot better than most. “Look, I called Figo and he’s bringing something that might. He should be here any minute now.” 

Blinking, Gila looked at him. Then the man gave himself a shake, his face clearing of some of its perpetual worry. “Oh, really? Thanks…you know, I didn’t even think of that.”

Gianluigi glanced at him, then abruptly slouched against a counter just as Gila’s brow began to wrinkle again. So Gila was distracted fussing over him, and didn’t break into his usual guilt-trip, and Gianluigi muttered what sounded like an actual apology for not refusing the drink while sort of petting at Gila’s arms. He touched the man like he didn’t know if Gila was going to be there in the next moment, and really seemed genuinely worried when Gila called himself an idiot.

Zlatan decided he’d save the laugh for later, when he wasn’t thinking about the limp groaning lumps he’d left on the bed upstairs. He added the coffeepot to the tray, then was about to pick it up when somebody knocked at the door.

By now Figo had been around often enough for Sandro to just give in and make the wards recognize him. He opened the door before Gila could even finish looking up from Gianluigi, then stepped inside. Then he stopped, raising his eyebrows at everyone.

He had a small paper bag in one hand, which was explainable, but the big bumpy satchel over his shoulder wasn’t. Not to mention that its bumps were sort of moving, which made Zlatan raise his eyebrows right back, then nod towards the satchel.

Figo glanced at it, then winced. He toed the door shut as he got down on one knee to slip the satchel off his shoulder onto the ground with rather more care than he really needed. “You lucked out today. I was already making up a batch…honestly, sometimes I wonder if Raúl is the only one of them with any sense of long-term responsibility.”

The flap of the satchel shivered, then lifted just enough for a pair of beady little eyes to gleam beneath it. Pause, and then the piece of leather flopped completely over. A tiny fox kit bumbled out, skidded to a bug-eyed stop as it saw all of them, and then whipped up Figo’s arm to hide on his shoulder.

“Oh, _fuck_. Are you serious?” Zlatan gaped. “I thought you said that couldn’t happen!”

Figo looked hard at him, then closed his eyes and dropped his head into one hand. The fox on his shoulder stuck out its tongue at Zlatan. “ _Zlatan_. They’re not _mine_. I’m just baby-sitting.”

Oh, right, some of their parents had been at the party, too. Quite a few, judging from the number of little furballs that had already scrambled out, looking curiously about. Gila made a weird low noise and their heads all turned towards him. He glanced at Figo, then got down on the floor and…and they came padding over to him, already slicking back their ears as he reached towards their heads, a delighted smile on his face. “Oh…oh, so demons can have babies? But they’re cute. And so soft…”

“By spawning, yes,” Gianluigi muttered. He didn’t look entirely happy about the whole thing, especially when Gila cradled one kit against his chest and it playfully licked his nose, but he didn’t intervene. By the barest of margins, judging from the way he was pushing his fists against the counter.

“Great. More of them.” Zlatan eyed one as it pranced towards him. It was cute, and he was feeling an urge to pat its head…but it was _doing_ that, the cheeky little fuzzball. It was going to grow into just another annoying ass like Cesc, he reminded himself, and edged around towards Figo. “If I come back down here and anything, _anything_ ’s fucked up, I’m just letting Sandro at them.”

Figo intelligently didn’t say anything, just pulled a bottle out of the paper bag and handed it over to Zlatan. Then he went back to keep an eye on the kits, occasionally using his foot to nudge one back towards Gila when it strayed too far. He nonchalantly put another bottle on the counter by Gianluigi, not looking at the angel.

Zlatan turned around to add his bottle to the tray, and when he turned back, the other one was still on the counter, but its neck wasn’t filled anymore, and Gianluigi was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he looked up and caught Zlatan watching: he tensed a little, but just stared straight back, as if Zlatan was the one who’d gotten snagged red-handed.

Well, Zlatan could deal with him later, when Figo and Gila weren’t around to give him reasons he shouldn’t. He picked up the tray, gave the fox kits a last wary look, and then went upstairs.

* * *

Paolo still had his head tucked down, but he was beginning to push his neck up into the little circles Zlatan was rubbing across its back. Zlatan looked at the slightly damp curls gathering at the angel’s hairline, suppressed a sigh, and settled down for a while. At least he’d felt everyone downstairs leave so he didn’t have to worry about that. Till he got downstairs and saw if they’d messed with anything, anyway. “Okay, so I don’t care about the war now, but just so you know, this holiday is _not_ about when you lot got the upper hand. It’s overeating and caring about presents and eggnog. _Lots_ of spiked eggnog.”

Sandro snorted, then groaned and shoved himself backward against Paolo, bumping his bony cheekbone hard into Zlatan’s knee. “Shut up or—or—all right, if I had something left in my stomach, I’d throw it up on you.”

“Eggggnoooog. With spices and alcohol and—”

Paolo made a little whimpering noise and Zlatan’s mouth snapped shut on him. He blinked, then slumped back against the headboard and massaged Paolo’s neck some more. At least Sandro had crumpled up again and was quiet, half-curled in Paolo’s arms so he looked...sort of pathetically young, actually. And that twitch in Zlatan’s chest was seriously disturbing. He was going to have to do something later to make up for it, maybe come to Freddie’s annual midnight orgy with a coldwater hose. Yet another party he didn’t really want to go to, anyway. If he got thrown out early, he could come home and mock Sandro for stuffing his face with holiday chocolates instead.

“Mmm. I think whatever Figo brought is helping. Slowly,” Paolo eventually said. He sounded raspy and maybe like his tongue was sticking a bit to the top of his mouth, but not so much like he was going to throw up every other word. “Sorry about your clothes.”

Zlatan did sigh this time, but let his fingers drift into Paolo’s hair. “I grew up in Hell, Paolo. Believe me, I’ve lost clothes in worse ways. Anyway, at least I got naked. I was beginning to think this would be the first Christmas morning I didn’t end up that way.” 

He didn’t notice at first, mostly because he was snagging a piece of the mostly-untouched toast for himself, but eventually he picked up on the red flush in Paolo’s cheek, and the way Paolo was trying to tuck down his chin. Only Sandro’s head was in the way, so when Zlatan snorted Paolo’s eye rolled back to see.

“So how was your party?” Paolo asked, a bit hastily.

He still looked pretty bad, so Zlatan gave him a pass this time. “Crap. Henke and Freddie ended up fucking again, so that’s another year I have to be nice to Freddie. I wished I was here the whole time.”

“Gigi was annoying,” Sandro mumbled. He shifted, his hand sliding down Paolo’s back to nestle against Zlatan’s waist. “I actually wished you’d been here, too. Paolo was holding onto my arm the whole time so I couldn’t hit Gigi. And somebody needed to.”

“Sandro.” Paolo closed his eyes, looking like a different kind of pain was striking him, but then pecked Sandro’s forehead anyway. “It would’ve upset Alberto.”

Sandro snorted, but reluctantly subsided as Paolo started to massage the back of his head. He absently stroked Paolo, his knuckles grazing across Zlatan’s stomach.

“It was nice to see Alberto introducing Gianluigi around, anyway. He looked happy,” Paolo added. His expression relaxed as Zlatan gently drew his fingers through the angel’s curls. “And when Alice found them in the closet, they both seemed to be enjoying themselves.”

Zlatan snickered as Sandro reared back to look incredulously at Paolo, then abruptly buried a blush in Paolo’s shoulder. Sometimes Sandro still was inexplicably prudish, but Zlatan thought that was kind of a good look on him. All twitchy and shocked. And usually quiet too, which was always good.

“Sorry we had you come back to this,” Paolo said after another minute, a little quieter.

“Well, at least it wasn’t another pack of hellhounds.” And really, even with Paolo sick and Sandro bringing up scary pangs of sympathy and Figo damn near shocking the fangs out of Zlatan’s head…it was a lot better than the party had been. A lot better than anything else Zlatan could’ve been doing. “Anyway, it’s still only six, and it’s a holiday today. I can wait a little—shut up, Sandro. I _can_. I am.”

Sandro’s shoulder went back down. Then he shrugged and seemed to doze off; Paolo smiled, eyes still shut. He pushed his head into Zlatan’s hand, and Zlatan leaned his own head back against the wall. A nap sounded like a pretty good idea, actually, he thought, and closed his own eyes.


End file.
